


All Right

by Tierfal



Category: Doctor Who
Genre: Drama, M/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-02-20
Updated: 2010-02-20
Packaged: 2017-10-07 10:35:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,180
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/64307
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tierfal/pseuds/Tierfal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Is it," he says, "or is it not what you really want, Jethro?"</p>
            </blockquote>





	All Right

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by [this fic](http://community.livejournal.com/sizeofthatthing/366.html?thread=1791854) \-- the way I would have approached the idea. (Also, when this was written, "Midnight" was the only episode I'd seen in literally years, so please forgive my various small Who-canon-related failures.)

"Please—I just—you're the only person who understands it. And that means you're the only one who can make it right."

Jethro's chest feels tight, which is strange, since blurting out a confession should have made him lighter.

Maybe his heart knows that _that_ confession isn't the one that's weighing him down.

The Doctor turns, though, at the words, and looks at him, and he must know the whole desperate muddle that lies tangled behind it, because those warm, dark eyes seem to understand everything.

That is, after all, the point.

The Doctor draws a deep breath, briefly lets those eyes fall shut, opens them again, and steps forward until they're only inches apart, and Jethro wants to bolt on instinct but holds his ground.

"Is it," he says, "or is it not what you really want, Jethro?", and the _R_ has that curl, and somehow he imbues both syllables with equal strength, and with every skipping heartbeat Jethro wants it more.

"It is," he promises. "I know it."

The Doctor nods, slowly, almost absentmindedly, and raises his hands, palms up. "Can I have yours?"

Hastily, wishing he'd thought faster, moved sooner, figured it out better, Jethro jerks his hands up and holds them out to the Doctor, pretending that he doesn't see his fingers shake.

The Doctor considers. "Can you take that off?"

Jethro's heart half-leaps, half-convulses, wholly writhes—

The cuff. Of course.

He fumbles with the snap, and a two-second eternity passes before it yields. He jams the bracelet in his pocket, offering his bare arm hesitantly, as if it isn't acceptable now without ornamentation.

He knew people, in school—when he went to a school—who wore bands like his to hide the cutting scars. His don't have such a practical purpose; everything in his home has always been painfully child-safe, anyway, and he wears them more because there _isn't_ anything to hide, and that's what he's concealing.

The Doctor makes no judgment, cradling his wrists gently in either warm, warm hand, thumb coming to rest on a vein of blue ore pulsing under the white skin. Jethro bites at the inside of his lip, striving not to flinch, because if he panics now, with his heartbeat monitored, he'll never get the Doctor to do it, and he'll never feel safe again.

It is the Doctor alone who has this power, who can transubstantiate the terror into something altogether beautiful. Jethro knows this at the level of guts and instinct.

So he breathes deeply and tries to stay still and meets the warm, warm brown eyes as steadily as he can.

The silence stretches, sprawls, and nothing—but then a nudge, unassuming, at the edge of his very _mind_, like a touch to his _brain_, and so much of him revolts, rebels, refuses—his mind tears away and blocks the soft advances of a light that might grow searing, and—

"Jethro," the Doctor whispers, "you're fighting it."

"—_fighting_—" he grits out.

"It's all right."

"It's… _it's all right_… but…"

"I've got you."

"_I've got you_."

And he has—he has got the Doctor, even now, after all this, and that _means_ something. It means that someone gives a shit how he feels, for once; someone isn't writing him off just because he's young, because his tee-shirt's black, because sarcasm is the last retreat of the vulnerable and the mortar of his form.

He lets himself give way, and the light slowly overwhelms him.

It's like a blanket—like a fog, a mist—huge, hot, wet, stifling, bathing him, covering him, seeping into every crevice of his brain—it envelops him, enfolds him, lays a heavy claim to everything he knows, and feels, and is—

And it _reads_ him—he senses it. _It_, this force, this presence, it gathers all the fragments of his thoughts and his memory, all the triumphs and humiliations, and sorts through them like one of those ancient slide reels, flicking through fast enough that they blur, and all he feels is a ripple of old emotion from every disparate disappearing photograph. And still it swells—still it grows—still it spreads wider and fuller and gains more access and control, and he's floundering somewhere, somewhere small and helpless in his _own mind_—

"You're all right," someone reassures him distantly. "It's just me."

"_You're all right, it's just me_—"

"You're safe with me—"

"_You're safe with_—"

"—you know that, don't you, Jethro?"

"…_Jethro_…"

But he doesn't know that now; he's starting to doubt it, because it's _just so much_ to abandon his _center_ to an interloper who holds him in this hazy, engulfing sunbeam thrall, with its thousand curious fingers all probing at parts of him, parts that _belong_ to him, at words and worlds that nobody should know, because they're _his_, and why did he ever think this was a good idea? It's _insane_, and he's slipping, and he doesn't want this anymore—it's too invasive, too intensive, too _personal_, and the more he sees of himself the less he realizes he is—

But then a pure-white finger touches something—something different—caresses it—and—at first he doesn't even—can't process—

And pleasure floods through him, so greedy and sizzling that his knees buckle, and only the faintest warmth of a hand at his waist, another pressing gently at his neck, sustains him and keeps him from crumpling to the floor and breaking the contact.

And he doesn't _want_ to break the contact, because ohGodohGodoh_God_ it's so beautiful, and he's drowning in white energy and endorphins and he doesn't want to breathe—

But, gently, the light recedes, and he recovers himself, regains control of his facilities one by one, and… here he is.

Jethro sinks to the carpet, knees jellied, head spinning, groping for a handhold.

Two fingers are still at his carotid artery—_no_, those aren't his words, he wouldn't call it that, but he can't—he can't…

A warm hand eases him to the floor and strokes tenderly through his hair.

"You're all right, Jethro," the Doctor says. "Hold on. Stay with me, yeah?"

"Y-yeah," Jethro manages, and he cringes—but then as the Doctor puffs a little sigh and draws him gently in, he starts to think. He steps back, and he analyzes, and he gauges the things that were so wrong before, and now they're all… right.

Because the Doctor has, somehow, done precisely what he hoped.

So Jethro clenches his fingers in the nearest lapel and presses his cheek to the silk of the navy blue vest, and the Doctor holds him close and kindly, without speaking or moving, and the two of them are coiled together on the floor and inextricable.

Jethro doesn't raise his head until he's breathing normally again, and then only to set his forehead against the Doctor's neck. The words he utters are his own.

"Take me with you," he whispers, smoothing out the wrinkles he's left in his savior's shirt.

The Doctor takes a deep breath, his chest filling against Jethro's, and releases it softly.

"All right," he says.


End file.
